Hello Sascha: I'm sorry you've had trouble with DOC and DOCX export. Would you be able to send us your RTF files, so we can investigate the problem?

Also, is there any reason you're choosing to export in these formats, instead of transferring the documents using RTF? You'll always see the best fidelity using RTF, as that's Nisus Writer's native file format and doesn't require the use of an importer/exporter.

Main reason I need to export to binary doc / docx: I sometimes have customers who are not well-versed with file formats, using wonky (Windows) installations, resulting in both RTF and renamed .DOC to open in Word Pad rather than Word or OpenOffice / LibreOffice. In such cases, binary .doc or .docx makes sure the right application opens, saving both my customers and me time (no “the document looks weird, and where are the comments?“ – “What application did you open the file with?” mail exchanges). Whenever possible, I send RTF files. Thankfully, my own publisher can deal with them just fine and doesn’t go all “where are the Word documents you were supposed to send us?”

Cheers,
-Sascha

P.S. Come to think of it, all affeced files started life as .docx on customer’s Windows computers. Perhaps the problems I see are from a combination of importing .docx to Nisus, working with the files, exporting to .docx again. Far larger manuscripts that started as RTF don’t show this behaviour for me. I’ll see what I come up with and include my findings with the support mail / attached document.

Main reason I need to export to binary doc / docx: I sometimes have customers who are not well-versed with file formats, using wonky (Windows) installations, resulting in both RTF and renamed .DOC to open in Word Pad rather than Word or OpenOffice / LibreOffice.

Do you mean that using the "Save As" menu in Nisus Writer Pro (NWP) — where a file is saved with the .doc file extension, but internally contains RTF data — incorrectly opens in Word Pad on Windows? That would be unfortunate, and is something I've not myself seen.

Perhaps the problems I see are from a combination of importing .docx to Nisus, working with the files, exporting to .docx again. Far larger manuscripts that started as RTF don’t show this behaviour for me. I’ll see what I come up with and include my findings with the support mail / attached document.

That's a possibility, though isn't too likely a factor. Well it sounds like something in your document content is certainly preventing the successful DOC / DOCX export. Thanks for your help in narrowing this down Sascha.

martin wrote:
Do you mean that using the "Save As" menu in Nisus Writer Pro (NWP) — where a file is saved with the .doc file extension, but internally contains RTF data — incorrectly opens in Word Pad on Windows? That would be unfortunate, and is something I've not myself seen.

I’ve seen it a couple of times, as said with “wonky” Windows installations. One customer in particular, I wonder how he gets any work done. He still has MS Works installed, a Trial for MS Office 2008 (or 2007?), AND Office 365. I didn’t even know it was possible to have multiple Word versions installed on one PC. When he double-clicks a file, it’s pretty random what application will open. Oh, well.

martin wrote:
That's a possibility, though isn't too likely a factor. Well it sounds like something in your document content is certainly preventing the successful DOC / DOCX export. Thanks for your help in narrowing this down Sascha.

I just sent you guys two example files and a description of my findings and guesses. I hope I got the right mail, has been ages since I had to contact Nisus support. Quite a good sign, actually.